From Brexit to Dexit?

The German government asked for the Grexit. Instead came the Brexit, which Berlin not want. Will the next step be the Dexit – the German exit from the EU?

Hardly. For the vast majority of Germans, membership of the EU is non-negotiable. Without the single market and the euro, Germany would be in economic decline.

Nevertheless, the AfD has now called for a “Dexi”t – against the declared will of its still-chairman (and MEP) Jörg Meuthen.

The election manifesto now says: “We consider it necessary for Germany to leave the European Union and to establish a new European economic and interest community.”

This is a stark change of course. In its programme for the 2019 European elections, the AfD had formulated its position on a possible EU exit even more cautiously.

At the time, it said: “Should our fundamental reform approaches not be realised in the existing system of the EU within a reasonable period of time, we consider a withdrawal of Germany or an orderly dissolution of the European Union and the establishment of a new European economic and interest community to be necessary.”

The sudden change of heart shows that the radical forces in the AfD are increasingly asserting themselves – and that Meuthen’s leadership is slipping away.

The consensus on Europe is gone

But it also shows that the post-war consensus in Germany on European policy has broken down. And not only in the AfD.

The CDU/CSU and SPD are also no longer in agreement. The SPD is striving for a United States of Europe, the CDU/CSU no longer knows exactly.

The programmatic uncertainty is characteristic of the end of the Merkel era. With her misguided policies in the euro crisis, the chancellor made the rise of the AfD possible in the first place.

Parliament has been disempowered

And with her lurching course in the Corona crisis, she has contributed to a division and radicalisation in German society.

Above all, however, it has disempowered the Bundestag and the European Parliament.

The two most important instruments of European crisis policy – the Corona reconstruction fund and the vaccination strategy – were conceived without the parliaments; democratic control does not take place or only sporadically.

This is grist to the AfD’s mill, unfortunately….

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) The original post is here